Does Spotify turn quiet tracks up?

Not by default. Its normalization is down only, so a master quieter than −14 LUFS plays as it was delivered while anything louder is attenuated to the target. That is the single biggest reason not to chase loudness: a quiet master keeps its dynamics and a loud one is turned down anyway, usually with an audibly denser character.

Why does Apple Music use a different target from Spotify?

Because its normalization runs through Sound Check, which stores a replay gain figure per track and applies it at playback, and Apple has settled on about −16 LUFS for that purpose. Spotify works to about −14 LUFS. The figures are service conventions rather than any shared standard, which is why a single master cannot be optimal for both.

What is Sound Check replay gain?

It is a per-track gain figure Apple calculates and stores, then applies at playback so tracks from different releases sit at a similar perceived level. Because it is stored per track rather than per album, an intentionally quiet track between loud ones will still be lifted in isolation unless album-level normalization is used.

Should I keep a louder master for clubs?

Yes, keep a separate one. Club systems and DJ software apply no normalization at all, so a master squeezed to a streaming target can arrive sounding small next to everything else in the set. The trade is headroom: keep the loud version, but watch the true peak and make sure it does not clip on a large system.

Do podcast platforms normalize episodes for me?

Some hosts do on ingest and some do not, and the published figures are recommendations rather than enforced processing. Apple recommends about −16 LUFS in stereo and −19 LUFS in mono with a true peak no higher than −1 dBTP, so mastering to that specification is the reliable approach regardless of what your host does with it.

Streaming Platform Loudness Guide

You Might Also Need

Loudness Normalizer

Normalize to LUFS loudness standards

Loudness Meter (LUFS)

Measure integrated loudness in LUFS

Audio Limiter

Apply peak limiting to prevent clipping

Loudness Standards Reference

Loudness standards reference

Streaming Platform Loudness Guide describes what each major platform does to a file after upload: which loudness figure it normalizes to, and whether a quiet master gets raised to meet it. The behavior matters as much as the number, because two services with the same target can treat a quiet file in opposite ways.

What is Streaming Platform Loudness Guide?

Eight rows cover the streaming platforms and broadcast standards a release usually meets, and club play is listed separately because it normalizes nothing at all. Each row gives the target and a note on what actually happens on upload.

What each platform does:

Spotify, −14 LUFS, turning louder uploads down but leaving quieter ones alone by default, measured over a window that combines a one minute span with the integrated value.
YouTube, −14 LUFS, with its own gating and the possibility of extra limiting when peaks push past roughly −1 dBTP.
Apple Music, −16 LUFS, applying Sound Check replay gain track by track and encoding to AAC, so true-peak headroom is worth keeping.
Amazon Music, −14 LUFS, applying gain in both directions rather than only downward.
Tidal at −14 LUFS and Deezer at −15 LUFS, both down only, with Deezer normalizing per release on some tiers.
Podcast directories, where Apple recommends −16 LUFS in stereo and −19 LUFS in mono with a true peak no higher than −1 dBTP.
Broadcast, where Europe follows EBU R128 and the United States follows ATSC A/85.
Club and DJ playback, where nothing is normalized and loudness is the point.

Loudness normalization only changes gain, and gain cannot repair dynamics. A master pushed to −9 LUFS and turned down to −14 by Spotify arrives at the same level as one mastered at −14, but the compression and limiting are still baked into it, so the quieter presentation of the loud master has no advantage to show for the trade. Platforms measure an integrated value with their own gating rather than a peak, then either attenuate or, on some pipelines, apply gain in both directions. Apple stores a replay gain figure per track, which is why a per-track rather than per-album approach can shift the balance between songs on a release. Apple and YouTube also re-encode to AAC, so a ceiling of −1 dBTP exists to keep a lossy encoder's overshoot from clipping after the fact. Headroom is therefore the practical currency: master to the target you will publish to, keep the true peak below the ceiling and let the platform's own gain stage do the rest.

What the guide cannot tell you:

It is written from published figures, so it cannot read your file or confirm what a platform did to it after upload.
Behavior is described in outline; the actual measuring gate, encoder and gain stage inside each service are not modeled here.
Down-only services leave quiet masters quiet, which makes their target a level to land on rather than a floor to be raised to.
Podcast figures are recommendations rather than enforced processing, and hosts normalize inconsistently on ingest.
Club and DJ playback applies no normalization, so a master squeezed to a streaming target can sound small on a large system.
Nothing is measured, normalized or uploaded here; the page is a companion to a meter and a normalizer, not a replacement for either.

Treat the table as a delivery checklist rather than a promise. If one master has to serve several services, target the quietest common figure, which in practice means about −16 LUFS with a true peak at −1 dBTP, and let the louder platforms turn it down if they want to. If a release is destined for one service only, use that service's row directly. And if the same material is going to a club system, keep a separate louder master aside, because the one place no normalization happens is the place where loudness is the point.

How to use Streaming Platform Loudness Guide

Find the platform or platforms you are publishing to and read the target and behavior from the table.
Decide whether one master has to serve several services, and if so pick the quietest common target.
Measure the finished mix, then apply the difference so the integrated value lands on that target with true-peak headroom below the ceiling.
Re-check the true peak after any lossy encode, since the encoder can overshoot what the source file did.

When to use Streaming Platform Loudness Guide vs related tools

Streaming Platform Loudness Guide is for the delivery decision, so read it once the mix is finished and the open question is what to hand the platform. Loudness Normalizer applies a chosen target to a file in one pass, Loudness Meter (LUFS) confirms what a master actually reads, and Audio Limiter is how excess peaks are brought under a true-peak ceiling without a full remix. When the release is a spoken-word show rather than music, Multi-Guest Leveler evens out the voices before any platform gets a chance to normalize them.

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